30 June – David Loveless, St Mary Magdalen Sheet Church

Background noises

Years ago as part of a recording project, I spent some time in an anechoic chamber. These are specially designed to not only be truly soundproof but also to have zero echoes or reflections in them. Going into one is truly disorientating you step through the door and as it’s shut you suddenly feel completely cut off from the outside world. It’s so quiet there that you can hear your own blood rushing around your body and your bones creak together as you move. It makes you realise you don’t know how much noise is just naturally around you at all times until it is gone.

Last year when the first lockdown was announced there was that feeling again of all this noise around us that we take for granted suddenly disappearing. Most of us were no longer leaving our homes, seeing the people we normally did, our usual routines completely gone. Now thanks to the incredible hard work of researchers and medical care professionals around the world that is starting to change. Gradually the background noise of our lives is returning.

But should it sound the same as before?

We’ve seen how this pandemic has disproportionately affected people in minority communities, people of poor socioeconomic status and people with disabilities highlighting and showing more prominently the inequality that is in our world. This inequality is nothing new and was already there. But for some of us maybe it was more hidden or not noticed, like how you don’t normally hear your bones creak or your blood rushing around your body. Or maybe we already knew it was there and the pandemic has highlighted again how big that inequality is.

So the question is as we start to get back to some kind of “normal”. What do we do about it? How do we advocate and fight for those less fortunate than us? How do we make sure we don’t just push these issues into the background noise of our lives again?

Because Jesus called us to love and care for everyone and frankly we still have a lot of work to do!